FREE Drum Machines...


Although your in studio drum machines like the Alesis SR-18 and the Boss DR-880 are probably the slickest way to go when it comes to firing up a loop for some rhythm practice or song jams, there are other alternatives out there. And, best of all they're 100% free...

A lot of people ask me what I have found online for free drum machines. And, which ones (if any) are any good. There are only a few of them and not every online drum machine is easy to use or has the perfect set of features & drum sounds. But, there are a few I can recommend checking out.

For a nice piece of software you can run on your desktop or laptop, I'd suggest Hydrogen. It's a fantastic piece of free open-source software that can work very nicely as a quick drum machine for all your at home jams. Check out the demo video below...





Next, (if you are not interested in installing any software), you can visit the One-Motion Flash based online drum machine. It'll do pretty much everything you need to do. My only complaint is the Tempo control. They've designed it instead as a slider control and it has no b.p.m., (Beats Per Minute), indicator. So, therefore you're at a total loss for knowing what tempo you're really jamming at. Perhaps not a huge deal to most people, but I'd prefer an actual tempo control listed in b.p.m.

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Finally, there's the Gieson Drum Pattern Sequencer. You'll likely need some time with it to get a handle on this one, but it's a fairly capable drum pattern generator, with decent sound as well. This one does have a tempo indicator in b.p.m. (yay), and a cool feature for adding more loop space (good for 5/4 and other signatures).

Be careful though, because it's default open page-load is set to 5 measures. Just use the "+" and "-" controls on the lower right to add or subtract individual beats.